“Finding Answers” COVID-19 Vaccine Special: FOX21 Talks With The Experts

DULUTH, Minn. — FOX21 and other news media outlets in the Northland came together at the DECC on Wednesday to interview experts and community organizers about the vaccine and distributing it to the current priority groups in our community.

We spoke with St. Louis County Public Health Division Director Amy Westbrook.

Westbrook says that St. Louis County hasn’t lost a life to COVID-19 for the past week-and-a-half.

And while the county’s case numbers have been dropping, she says it’s still important to keep taking all the precautions we’ve been following for almost a year now, especially with even more contagious variants spreading around the world.

Currently, almost 20,000 St. Louis County residents have received both shots required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

The demand for the vaccine is still much higher than the current supply.

“Supply is certainly still an issue, we have multiple systems working to get vaccine out and into people’s arms,” Westbroko explained. “Our pharmacy systems, healthcare systems, tribal government, and then we have the state site here at the DECC, so overall we have about 20% of our population with at least one dose of the vaccine in St. Louis County.”

We also spoke with Essentia Health’s community outreach manager and an organizer with the Healthy Hillside group.

They both said it’s critical to make sure that underserved groups and those who are BIPOC in the current priority groups are getting access to the vaccine in our community.

“We are working hard with our trusted coalition partners in the neighborhoods to make sure that our vaccine allocation at Essentia is getting outside of the four walls of our hospitals and clinics, and into the neighborhoods, making sure we’re reaching those disproportionately affected by COVID-19,” Jill Doberstein, Essentia Health’s community outreach manager, said.

“Our group The Healthy Hillside, we have relationships in the Hillside already, and we do our work there,” Miranda Pacheco with Healthy Hillside said. “So I think those relationships are trusting and so we have partnered with Essentia to be like hey look this is what we’re doing, and we’re trying to bring the vaccine into the Hillside.”

To sign up for the COVID-19 vaccine, head to Minnesota’s Vaccine Connector website.